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$ National Sins the Cause of National Calamity. $\ 



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A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN 



St Raul's tf&uwjf, fa $ortr, $nMana, 

ON THE 

"DAY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION, FASTING, AND PRAYER, 

APKIL 30, 1863. 



GEORGE UPFOLD, D.D., LL.D., 



BISHOP OF INDIANA. 



NEW YORK 



M% D . APPLE TON AND COMPANY, 

I 



443 & 445 BROADWAY. 
1863. 



u 



&2r$> 



oinr- 



National Sins the Cause of National Calamity. 



A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN 



m. full's C|urt|, fa $ottf, fnMara, 



DAY OF NATIONAL HUMILIATION, FASTING, AND PRAYER, 
APRIL 30, 1863. 



BY 

GEORGE UPFOLD, D. D., LL. D. 

BISHOP OF INDIANA. 



NEW YORK: 
D . APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

443 & 445 BROADWAY. 
1863. 






61608 . 
'0* • 



SERMON. 



" God, thou hast cast us off; thou hast scattered us; thou hast 
been displeased ; O turn thyself to us again. Thou hast made the earth 
to tremble ; thou hast broken it ; heal the breaches thereof, for it 
shaketh. Thou hast showed thy people hard things ; thou hast made 
us to drink the wine of astonishment." — Psalm Ix, 1*3, 3. 

. #%***;; 

How truthful this description offbu&^ondition as 
a nation and country, under existing circumstances ! 
How clearly and impressively do these words of the 
Psalmist set forth the cause of this disastrous con- 
dition, and the only way open for our relief ! God 
hath inflicted the chastisement under which we are 
suffering. We have justly incurred His displeasure, 
and he hath smitten us ; that " when His judgments 
are abroad among us, we, an offending people, may 
learn righteousness." It is the Lord our God who 
hath " made our portion of the earth to tremble ; 
who hath broken it so that it shaketh ; " and He 
alone, " turning Himself to us again," as we humble 
ourselves before him, in all sincerity of contrition, in 



deprecation of our manifold sins, and in invocation 
of His mercy and forgiveness, can " heal the sores 
thereof, 11 save, and deliver us. 

The judgments of God are upon us and impend- 
ing over us. Dark clouds overspread our social and 
2">olitical horizon. Civil war is convulsing our once 
united, peaceful, and prosperous country; and "sedi- 
tion, privy conspiracy, and rebellion " are desolating 
the fair heritage bequeathed to us by our fathers. 
The Almighty Ruler of nations, in His mysterious, 
but wise and gracious providence, hath permitted a 
grievous national chastisement to fall upon us, in its 
origin, circumstances, and progress, almost unexam- 
pled in history. 

Scarcely three years have elapsed since our favor- 
ed land, throughout its length and breadth, was pros- 
pering in its wonted quietness and peace ; and in the 
minds of most of our fellow citizens, there were no 
apprehensions of any disastrous change. With a 
form of government calculated, and proved to be, 
eminently conducive to and conservative of the 
national welfare; with wholesome laws, imposing 
only wholesome restraints; and with a system of 
administration which secured equal rights to every 
citizen, ample protection of life and property, and as 
much individual liberty as is compatible with per- 
sonal and social happiness, the people of this feder- 
ative Union were blessed beyond most of the nations 



of the earth. There was everything to encourage, 
and nothing to dishearten us in our anticipations of 
advancement and permanence. With a fertile soil, 
yielding in its diversified productions, a rich return 
to its cultivators ; with exhaustless mineral wealth in 
constant development ; with manufacturing enter- 
prises of every kind in successful operation ; with a 
remunerative commerce, internal and external, and 
encircling the globe ; with educational institutions, 
open to all classes, and affording every needful facil- 
ity for intellectual cultivation, scientific attainments, 
and general knowledge and intelligence ; with reli- 
gious privileges, unfettered in their exercise, and 
universally diffused ; in a word, with all the advan- 
tages and appliances calculated to make it a great 
nation, and perpetuate its growing prosperity, this 
Republic ])romised not only to realize, but to surpass, 
the most sanguine hopes and expectations of its 
patriotic founders, and become more and more " a 
praise and glory in the earth." 

Suddenly, a cloud, at first not bigger than a 
man's hand, but of ominous aspect, appeared in the 
South, which soon enlarged into portentous dimen- 
sions, and spread itself wider and wider, day by day, 
until it covered the whole southern domain ; and a 
storm burst upon and swept over it, with the fury of a 
tornado, threatening the North, East, and West with 
devastation. War, with its train of attendant evils, 



6 

was initiated and fastened upon our common coun- 
try ; not from the invasion of a foreign foe, but from 
the aggressive acts of a portion of our own fellow 
citizens, in the madness of pride and ambition ; and 
brother armed against brother in a sanguinary inter- 
necine conflict. Ever since a change has come over 
our anticipations of advance. Our dreams of pros- 
perity have been disturbed and broken up, and dis- 
aster and grief have fallen upon our happy land. It 
is a sad, sad change ; a change in which all classes 
and conditions are directly or indirectly involved, — 
those who are remote from the actual fields of strife, 
as well as those who are in or near it, spectators or 
victims of the devastation and ruin which have 
marked the progress of the hostile armies. A gen- 
eral and sore national calamity has come upon this 
once peaceful and prosperous country, and is still 
impending over us, and, as yet, with apparently faint 
hope of deliverance, adding daily to our chastisement 
as a people, and darkening all our future prospects. 

It is, however, of God's permission and ordering 
for wise and gracious purposes of His own ; and He 
alone can heal and restore. Very properly, very 
dutifully, and with a just and commendable recognition 
of the wisdom, goodness, mercy, and power of the 
Almighty Ruler of nations, and with a due apprecia- 
tion of the only reliable interposition for our deliver- 
ance, has the President of the United States again 






recommended the observance of a Day of National 
Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer, and called upon 
us " to humble ourselves as a people before Almighty 
God ; to confess our national sins ; and to pray for 
His clemency and forgiveness." For this purpose 
we are now assembled in common with our fellow 
citizens throughout our afflicted land ; and, I trust, 
with a full conviction of the necessity for such 
humiliation, and a sincere desire and intention to 
discharge this our bounden duty and privilege in 
true contrition of spirit, and with firm resolutions and. 
earnest endeavors so to amend individually our ways 
and doings as to add our personal influence and ex- 
ample to enhance that collective repentance and 
reformation on which we can alone hope for the 
Divine forbearance, forgiveness, and deliverance. 

This is not the occasion nor the place to dilate 
on the immediate causes of this national disaster, 
which would involve considerations of domestic poli- 
tics unbecoming my official position to discuss ; ex- 
cept to say, which I do without any hesitation or 
reserve, and on high and competent authority," that 

* Extracts from the speech of the Hon. Alexander H. Stepheus j 
adverse to secession, in the Georgia committee, January, 1801. 

" Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reason you 
can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments — what 
reasons you can give to your fellow sufferers in the calamity that it will 
bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth 
to justify it ? They will he the calm and deliberate judges in the case! 



it has arisen from no fault of our National Govern- 
meat toward those who were notoriously the origin- 
ators of this internecine conflict, in any of its laws 
, or m their administration ; that it is not only an un' 
natural, but an unprovoked rebellion against one of 
the most just and beneficent Governments on the face 
of the earth ; and that its resistance to the uttermost 
at any sacrifice, and until the madness of those who' 
originated and are prolonging it, is restrained and 
arrested, and the integrity of the Union maintained 
and its safety secured, is not only a dictate of true 
patriotism, but a moral and religious duty. 

There is, however, a prior cause for this national 
calamity, of which I am free to speak ; and of which 
the present occasion, and my duty as a minister of 
Christ, require me to speak, and to speak out plain- 
ly, and without fear or favor. There is a prior cause ; 

tranquilly accompanied with unbounded prosperity an i! 



and it consists in our general and marked forsaking 
of God, as a people ; in our self-glorification, which 
has become so common as to have passed into a 
proverb ; in our dependence on mere human devices 
and instrumentalities for advancement and prosper- 
ousness as a nation ; and in ignoring, practically, in a 
greater or less degree, the Author and Source of all 
our national mercies and blessings, in the inculpatory 
language of the prophet, in relation to God's ancient 
chosen nation: having "forsaken Him, the fountain 
of living waters, and hewed out to ourselves cisterns 
broken cisterns, that can hold no water." 

The Lord our God is the beneficent source of all 
the multiplied and abounding blessings, which, as a 
nation, we have heretofore enjoyed, and to a large ex- 
tent, and amid the present calamity, still enjoy. But, 
alas ! in our blindness and perverseness, in our pride 
and presumption, we have forsaken and forgotten 
Him ; if not openly and avowedly, in the scornfulness 
of utter unbelief, yet practically and to all intents and 
purposes. We have undertaken to live without and 
independent of Him ; relying on our own wisdom to 
guide, our own strength to succor, our own might to 
protect and defend, and our own skill to bring our 
enterprises, of every kind, to a successful issue. This 
gracious God and Father, this bountiful Benefactor, 
has been, and continues to be, forsaken, recklessly 
or carelessly and most ungratefully forsaken, by great 



10 

numbers of His dependent creatures, on whom He 
pours forth a constant stream of blessings in His be- 
neficent providence, and invites, " in accents sweet as 
angels use," to be partakers of His marvellous spirit- 
ual grace. His glory is given to other and worthless 
objects ; His just, reasonable, and practical demands 
of reverence and obedience are deferred to the veriest 
trifles of this vain and perishing world ; even if, which 
is in truth the inexcusable sin and crying guilt of very 
many, His mercy and grace, and proffered salvation, 
with His positive commandments, are not wilfully 
refused, rejected, and scorned. 

In this nominally Christian land, there are noto- 
riously numbers who live and act as if there were no 
God and Saviour, no moral obligation, no religious 
duties and responsibilities. " God is not in all their 
thoughts." They never bow the knee to Him in 
prayer, nor offer Him the sacrifice of praise and 
thanksgiving. They never name Him, save in trifling 
and insulting adjurations, or in impious profanity. 
This world, and its pursuits and enjoyments; this 
world that is passing away, and they passing away 
with it to a dread account, which however much they 
may ignore, or affect to scorn, they cannot escape or 
evade ; this world is their solace, their hope, their de- 
pendence, their God. On it all their affections and 
desires are fixed ; their confidence placed ; their plans, 
purposes, and energies concentrated ; and above it, 



J I 



aside from it, beyond it, they seem to have neither 
thought nor care. Its spirit possesses their minds ; 
its principles govern their conduct ; its vain and too 
often debasing pursuits engross their time and atten- 
tion. Business pursued beyond its legitimate limits, 
and absorbingly followed ; money making, political 
ambition, sensual indulgences, purely selfish gratifi- 
cations of every kind, if there be nothing worse in 
seeking their attainment, impair and ultimately de- 
stroy their religious sensibilities, and sink deeper, day 
by day, in worldliness, ungodliness, and sin. 

This is no fanciful picture ; no fiction of the imagi- 
nation. The inculpation is a sad reality, an alarming 
fact. Will our gracious God and Saviour, who is 
thus forsaken and forgotten, pass it all by with im- 
punity to the offenders ? May we not expect Him, in 
His righteous displeasure, to visit us for all these 
things? Is it at all strange, and does it cast the 
shadow of a shade on His goodness and His justice, 
that He should " cast us off and scatter us ; cause our 
portion of the earth to tremble, and break it, so that 
it shaketk ; that He should show us hard things, and 
make us to drink the wine of astonishment " ? Is it 
any marvel that He should permit calamity to come 
upon us ; visit our transgressions with the rod of His 
wrath, and our offences with a scourge ; and thus 
teach us our guilt and exceeding sinfulness, and with 
that our littleness and helplessness, proud and self- 



12 

sufficient as too many of us have been and are ? Can 
Ave be at a loss to discern why the present convulsion 
of our national affairs has occurred ; and this once 
united, peaceful, and prosperous country is " shaken " 
by sedition and rebellion, and involved in a sangui- 
nary, Avasting, devastating civil war % 

Alas! Ave are "a sinful nation; a people laden 
with iniquity." Is this denied or doubted ? Take 
only a brief survey of the history of the past half 
century, in its bearing on our highly favored land ; 
and mark the manifest sad contrast, in its moral as- 
pects, of the present with the past. Where is the 
pure and elevated patriotism Avhich distinguished the 
founders of this Eepublic ? Has it not been gradual- 
ly waning, until it has degenerated into a mere sem- 
blance, an infinitesimal point ? Has not a selfish am- 
bition, a lust of power and emolument, Avith gross 
corruption in the attainment, insensibly obliterated 
true, genuine patriotism among our public men of all 
parties, and increased and cumulated until moral prin- 
ciple has been lost sight of, and common honesty be- 
come a thing that Avas, a faint and indistinct feature 
of the past ? Then turn your eyes to our commercial 
and manufacturing cities ; — and many of our remote 
villages and hamlets are not far behind them in the 
crying sin ; — and note the rapid advance from sim- 
plicity to luxury ; the aping of the corrupting habits, 
modes of living, expensive pleasures, and general 



13 

licentiousness of transatlantic countries and communi- 
ties, until from servile imitators we have become rivals, 
and in many respects superiors in reckless extrava- 
gance in dress, equipages, Household ornamentation, 
festive display, and all that is calculated to engender 
and foster pride, pomp, and sensuality, corrupt the 
heart and principles, and demoralize social life. Then 
consider, as growing out of this, the frequent and 
enormous frauds which have marked our later course 
as a people, the bribery and corruption which have 
dishonored many of our legislative bodies, national 
and State ; the peculations and defalcations of public 
officials, civic and military ; the swindling operations, 
immense and repeated, of directors and managers 
of banking and insurance companies, railroads, and 
other monetary associations ; with the told and untold 
sufferings of widows, orphans, and the helpless classes 
of society, consequent on these and kindred fraudulent 
transactions and wholesale robberies. And these' 
outrages — unpunished outrages in proportion usually 
to the amount stolen, the larger the fraud the greater 
the chance of impunity — not the work of men whose 
vocation is crime and robbery, but of men high in 
social position, occupying places of honorable trust, 
respectable, educated, intelligent, and some of them 
professedly religious men, active and ostentatious 
leaders in the popular moral and religious enterprises 
of the day, and trusted, because they were presumed 



14 



to be incapable of a dishonorable action, of any de- 
parture from moral principle, integrity, and honesty. 
Then, with all this, contemplate the general corrup- 
tion of public morals ; the increase and diffusion of 
an irreligious, socially disorganizing and demoralizing, 
and in many instances infidel literature ; the licen- 
tiousness of a portion of the public press, its pander- 
ing to the worst passions of human nature, and its 
encouragement of social evils, and every novel theory 
and scheme for social disorganization ; the utter reck- 
lessness of human life ; the robberies, assassinations, 
and murders, which fill the daily police record of the 
newspapers, and, from their frequency and audacity, 
have almost ceased to excite abhorrence and shock 
the sensibilities, of those who read them. In all this, 
— and it is not a tithe of our moral offences and our 
crying national sins, which are too horrible to be 
dwelt on in detail — hath not God been forsaken, for- 
gotten, and dishonored, and His righteous judgment 
incurred ? Is it not of His forbearance and mercy, 
that, as a sinful nation, and for our national sins, in- 
stead of this corrective chastisement, we are not ut- 
terly consumed ? 

It is most true, and as lamentable as true, that, as 
a people, we have grievously perverted our national 
mercies and blessings, and run counter to that right- 
eousness which alone exalte th a nation ; that we have 
abused our civil and religious liberty to purposes of 



15 



licentiousness ; have become selfish, unprincipled, 
worldly-minded, morally corrupt and vicious, in re- 
quital of the Providential goodness which hath been 
lavished upon us, and the religious light and knowl- 
edge, and the spiritual grace which have been so 
freely and fully accorded to and bestowed upon us, 
in the word and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, 

But this is not all of God's just complaint of us 
as a people and a nation. In addition to the offences 
which have been cursorily adverted to and stated, 
we have been, and we are offenders in another way, 
equally evil, equally deplorable, and equally deserv- 
ing the Divine chastisement. We have been, we are 
generally, proud, vainglorious, presumptuous, self- 
reliant ; counting far too much on human wisdom to 
guide, human devices to further and preserve, and 
human power to protect, defend, and prosper us. 
We have not only " forsaken God, the fountain of 
living waters, but have hewed us out cisterns, broken 
cisterns that can hold no water." 

Among these mere human agencies and instru- 
mentalities, our political institutions and their salu- 
tary influence have been relied upon for succor and 
defence in an hour of national peril, and for perma- 
nent national prosperity. Now to a certain extent, 
our political institutions are worthy of the high esti- 
mation which is entertained for them ; worthy of re- 



16 

liance. Informer evil days, and in past emergencies, 
they have proved trustworthy in an eminent degree. 
Not, however, intrinsically and independently, but 
only as God hath ordered, employed, and controlled 
them, as his agencies for subserving, securing, and 
perpetuating the national welfare. 

In and of themselves, the political institutions in 
which we have gloried, vainly and presumptuously 
gloried, are nothing, and less than nothing, as recent 
events have too sadly proved. For they have failed 
to disarm faction, and arrest sedition and rebellion, 
much as they have been relied upon to do both. 
Indeed, in the present commotion, they have seemed 
to invite, rather than repel aggression ; and through 
a perversion of the just principles they involve, have 
been made to sanction the wrong and outrage so 
wantonly and recklessly perpetrated. Employed in 
distinct recognition of the wisdom and power of God, 
which can alone give them efficiency, in humble de- 
pendence upon Him, in His fear, and in invocation 
of His aid and strength, they have wrought marvels 
for the American people ; and will again, and now, 
and always. But as independent resources, much as 
they may be relied upon to restrain the madness of 
the people, and enforce submission to the constituted 
authorities, obedience to the laws, and a restoration 
of union, harmony, and peace, they are mere human 



17 



devices, mere human instrumentalities, and a false 
and treacherous dependence. 

Then again, our self-adulation and reliance have 
found a basis in certain national characteristics, 
creditable in themselves, and, subordinated to a 
Higher Power, manifestly and extensively influential 
in cementing our political fabric, advancing the na- 
tional prosperity, and consolidating and expanding 
the goodly heritage received from our fathers. These 
characteristics are, the general education and intelli- 
gence of the American people, their enterprising 
spirit, their industrious habits, their indomitable 
energy and perseverance, their mechanical skill and 
inventive genius, their aptitude for business of every 
kind, and their capacity for self-government. These 
characteristic features, which have ostensibly produced 
such marvellous results, and, in a portion of time un- 
paralleled in history, have elevated us from feeble, 
dependent colonies to a commanding position and 
influence as an independent nation ; these have been 
made too much of a self-sufficient and God -forgetting 
reliance. These, in our pride and vainglory, have 
been substituted for the overruling and controlling 
Providence, and the beneficent intervention and 
furtherance of Almighty God. These alone are to 
make us, as a nation, a praise and glory in the earth. 
So many have reasoned; so too many still reason 
and speculate, and far more of the latter than the 
2 



18 

former. But how fallaciously! What have these 
national characteristics done for us in the present dis- 
astrous emergency ; and what are they likely to do? 
Nothing. They are of the earth, earthly; and, inde- 
pendent of the Divine interposition, less than nothing 
and vanity. 

Then again: our internal improvements, our mul- 
tiplied enterprises, in the shape of canals, railroads, 
and electric communication, bringing one end of our 
wide-spread domain into easy and instant con- 
nection with the other, and forming an apparent 
strong and inseparable bond of political union ; these 
and kindred appliances have been and continue to 
be relied upon as sure, unfailing elements of national 
greatness, and independent means of advance and 
permanence to the Republic. Now what have they 
all done, in preventing the existing convulsion, and 
in resisting and subduing the threatening machina- 
tions against the integrity and stability of the Union ? 
What can they do, in and of themselves, in averting 
national disaster and in promoting national pros- 
perity ? Nothing. If they are relied upon, as they 
have been relied upon, in exclusion of God and His 
sovereign control, and infinitely wise and gracious 
interposition ; if He is not recognized as giving them 
all their efficiency and power ; they are useless and 
unprofitable appliances, agencies, and instrumentali- 
ties of no conceivable account, mere human devices, 



19 

with all the necessary imperfection and imbecility of 
such devices. 

Then, farther: the internal resources of our 
highly favored country, its fertile soil, its diversified 
products, its mineral treasures, its extensive manu- 
factures, its constantly expanding and almost bound- 
less commerce ; all these, contributing as they do 
largely to national wealth and power, have been, 
and are, made grounds of self-reliance and vain- 
glorious boasting. These, eagerly and engrossingly 
pursued as they are, without reference to God's inter- 
vention, and in unmindfulness of His creative and 
conserving power, whose blessing alone makes them 
in any way and degree elements of national pros- 
perity, are a fallacious and treacherous dependence, 
far more likely to initiate decay and ruin than to 
promote advancement and permanence ; nay, tending, 
as history teaches, to engender corruption, pander to 
luxury, pride, and vice, and aid in undermiuing and 
ultimately overthrowing the political fabric. 

Then, farther : the extension of the national do- 
main ; the occupancy of vast tracts of country, up to 
a comparatively recent period the hunting grounds 
of nomadic, savage tribes, or the abode of a degen- 
erate race, in industry, enterprise, intelligence, and 
civilization, but little in advance of savages ; partic- 
ularly the discovery and development of mineral 
treasures in apparently inexhaustible quantity ; these 



20 



have been, and are, made a basis of independent 
reliance, as ensuring national security, advancement, 
and permanent prosperity. It is not to be denied, 
that in extending our republican form of government, 
our free political institutions, and our salutary laws, 
over those immense territories, heretofore given up to 
barbarism or to equivalent misrule ; in the introduc- 
tion of civilization, intelligence, and enterprise into 
regions hitherto destitute of them ; and in opening a 
new and boundless home for our surplus population, 
annually swollen by emigration from foreign lauds ; 
highly beneficial results have been produced, and 
the national prosperity materially advanced. But 
the precious metals, particularly the gold, which has 
attracted so many thousand adventurers to the new 
El Dorado, and in which so much reliance is placed 
to save and defend the country ; these grounds of 
glorying are far more likely to prove a curse than a 
blessing. Gold, on which many place their confi- 
dence, is, as all history and experience prove and 
proclaim, a source of national weakness rather than 
an element of national strength ; a plague spot on 
the body politic, eating into its very vitals as a cank- 
erous sore, corroding and corrupting it, and, instead 
of concentrating the energies of the nation, conserv- 
ing its welfare, and consolidating the Uniou, endan- 
gering, not only the prosperity of the Kepublic, but 
its very existence. Yet, of late, this has been and is 



21 

a matter of vain-glorious boasting and reliance. The 
influx of gold and other precious metals from our 
extended domain between the Kocky Mountains and 
the Pacific, and the wealth, resources, and power 
thereby produced, are, in the speculations of many, 
to sustain the Government in a very important ne- 
cessity, and through it maintain the Republic on a 
permanent, unshaken foundation, and preclude ruin 
or even disaster. The arm of the Almighty is 
nothing. His providence, if allowed, is only of sec- 
ondary account. Gold and its adjuncts are to save 
the country, avert calamity, and carry the nation 
forward to the summit of prosperity. 

They who thus reason, or rather boastingly talk, 
for there is very little reason in their fond specula- 
tions, are they not trusting in the veriest human de- 
vice, leaning on an arm of flesh, building on a founda- 
tion of sand, and " hewing out to themselves a broken 
cistern that can hold no water " % 

Then, still farther : the patriotism of the Ameri- 
can people generally ; their intense love of liberty ; 
their devoted attachment to our free institutions; 
their native bravery and martial prowess ; their ready 
adaptation to a soldier's life and duties, and to war- 
like enterprises on land and sea ; the promptitude with 
which they have relinquished their usual peaceable 
occupations and industrial pursuits, taken up arms, 
and rallied in armed array in defence of their country 



22 



when it has been menaced or assailed by an aggres- 
sive power; and the success which has generally 
crowned their efforts on the battle field, and in naval 
combat ; these characteristics, very creditable char- 
acteristics in themselves, have been and are made 
grounds of self-dependence, in forgetfulness, if not in 
rejection of the Lord God of hosts, who alone giveth 
skill, and courage, and strength, and victory. Our 
immense armies, our naval forces, in and of them- 
selves, are to save the country, in this its hour of 
peril, crush the rebellion, and restore the Union. 

Now all honor to those who, in almost countless 
numbers and without distinction of party, have, in 
the present national emergency, responded so readily 
and promptly to the summons of the constituted 
authorities, and rallied in defence of the Government 
of the country, the constitution and laws, wantonly 
and recklessly assailed by aspiring, seditious, and re- 
bellious citizens, who were profiting by, and prosper- 
ing under, a most benign, conservative, and salutary 
rule. All honor to our volunteer soldiers, who, in a 
spirit of patriotism rarely equalled, and never sur- 
passed, have left their homes and families and the 
comforts of domestic life; their peaceful occupations 
and remunerative industrial pursuits ; and gone forth 
by tens of thousands to repel aggression, maintain 
the laws of the land so wantonly defied, enforce the 
supremacy of the national authorities, and defend the 



23 

national flag from defiant insult. They have done 
well and nobly ; and they deserve well of the coun- 
try which, at such extensive sacrifices, they have vol- 
untarily arrayed themselves in arms and hazarded 
their lives to succor and sustain. 

Yet, after all, our armies, with all their courage 
and skill and prowess, are a mere human device ; an 
agency and instrumentality of the earth, earthly ; 
and, without the Divine aid, guidance, and blessing,, 
nothing. " The race is not to the swift, nor the bat- 
tle to the strong." Numbers are nothing ; courage is 
nothing ; military skill and enterprise are nothing ; 
a nation arrayed in arms, and prosecutiug the conflict 
with undaunted resolution and indomitable perse- 
verance, is nothing. If these are made grounds of 
dependence, independent of the God of battles, who 
" teacheth our hands to war and our fingers to fight ; ,r 
in forgetf ulness, in neglect, in wilful and defiant dis- 
obedience of Him, the conflict is divested of any 
reasonable hope of success, and disaster and defeat, 
and not victory and triumph, are to be anticipated. 

It is, however, unnecessary to extend these incul- 
pations. Sufficient have been adduced to sustain the 
position, that amid our multiplied and abounding 
mercies and blessings, we have too generally, as a 
people, forsaken the Lord our God, and our fathers 1 
God ; He who gave us the goodly heritage we still 
possess, and for the most part as yet unimpaired ; 



24 



He, by whose grace alone it was, that from inconsid- 
erable colonists, dependent on a distant and arbitrary 
sovereignty, we became a free and independent 
nation. Evidences enough have been afforded to 
demonstrate the necessity for the humiliation before 
God, and the deprecation of His just displeasure on 
account of our national sins, for which we are assem- 
bled to-day. Evidences enough have been given to 
convict us of having been, as a people, " boasters and 
proud," sinfully and presumptuously self-reliant ; crim- 
inally dependent on our own wisdom, strength, and 
resources ; that we have " forsaken the fountain of 
living waters, and hewed out to ourselves cisterns, 
broken cisterns that can hold no water ; " that we 
have in our hour of calamity and distress resorted to 
"refuges of lies," fallacious dependencies of mere 
human conception and devising, instead of practically 
acknowledging the Lord God as our " strong tower 
and rock of defence," flying to Him in our tribulation 
and peril, and invoking His omnipotent intervention, 
and relying upon His gracious and overruling provi- 
dence, to disperse the dark clouds which overshadow 
the land, arrest the raging storm, and say to the agi- 
tated billows on which we are tempest-tossed, " Peace, 
be still ! " 

We have once more, in compliance with the recom- 
mendation of the Chief Magistrate of the Eepublic, 
assembled, with our fellow citizens throughout the 



25 



land which is still faithful to the Union, in confessing 
before an offended God our manifold transgressions as 
a people ; our sins of commission and omission ; dep- 
recating His just displeasure, and invoking His gra- 
cious interposition in this our day of national distress 
and peril. This we have done in fitting words, and, 
it is trusted, with fitting disposition of mind, in a truly 
contrite and humble spirit, with sincere and devout 
affections and heartfelt dependence on the only Source 
of deliverance and safety. This, however, is not all 
our duty, nor a tithe of our duty. Actions rather 
than words are required to demonstrate our humilia- 
tion and contrition. God the Lord, whom we have 
confessed to have forsaken and forgotten, must re- 
ceive honor and glory in our amendment and refor- 
mation. We must abandon the sins, the fallacious de- 
pendencies, the "refuges of lies," and all the offences 
which have brought upon us this sore national calami- 
ty, and return in the obedience of faith to the Al- 
mighty Ruler of nations, and manifest toward Him 
renewed and practical allegiance and homage. Our 
help is in the name of the Lord, who hath made 
heaven and earth. He alone can succor ; He alone 
can defend and give success to our efforts for defence, 
for renewed unity and concord, and for an honorable 
and permanent peace. 

But national sins are only the aggregate of indi- 
vidual and personal sins ; and our repentance must be 



26 

personal, and each one begin the work of contrition 
and amendment with him or herself, so as to expand 
and intensify the collective humiliation, which is so 
imperatively demanded. Let us, then, return unto the 
Lord our God, in our individual capacity, that He may 
return to us, and return with blessings to our country. 
Let us honor Him in our families and in the domestic 
and social circle, fearing Him ourselves with all filial 
fear, and teaching our children and dependents to 
fear and reverence and serve Him. Thus only can 
we reasonably count on His gracious interposition, 
and hope that He " who hath scattered us, because He 
hath been displeased with us, will return to us again ; 
and He who hath made the land to tremble, and 
broken it, so that it shaketh, will heal the sores there- 
of. 1 ' Thus only may we, as a people, whom He hath 
hitherto preeminently blessed — still blesses beyond 
our deserts — look to Him to continue to bless us, in 
delivering us from our present distress, causing this 
devastating civil war to cease, and restoring peace 
and prosperity. Thus only may we expect His inter- 
vention in restraining the madness of the people who 
have originated and are bent on perpetuating this in- 
ternecine conflict ; give success to our armies in the 
field, aud our naval armament on the waters. Thus 
only may we anticipate the day, which may God in His 
mercy and goodness hasten, when, with glad and grate 
ful hearts, we may assemble as a people to offer our 



27 

thanksgiving and praise for the cessation and extinc- 
tion of this unnatural and sanguinary strife of brother 
with brother ; see our country once more united in 
bonds of mutual amity and concord, every heart ani- 
mated with true patriotism, and the North and the 
South, the East and the West, rallying as formerly, 
as one man, — a Macedonian phalanx, foot to foot and 
shoulder to shoulder, in repelling foreign aggression 
and in defence and maintenance of that glorious na- 
tional flag, under which, as an aegis, we have battled 
and conquered, and advanced from an inauspicious 
beginning to an elevated position among the nations, 
and unexampled national prosperity. Amen. 



PRAYER. 

Almighty and merciful God, who for our mani- 
fold sins hast scattered us abroad, and art justly 
displeased with us; turn Thee unto us again, we 
humbly beseech Thee, in Thy loving kindness and 
tender mercy. We confess with shame and confusion 
of face, that we are a sinful nation, a people laden 
with iniquity. In pride and presumption ; in covet- 
ousness and worldly-mindedness ; in self-sufficiency 
and self-dependence ; in glorying in our own wisdom, 
resources, and strength, instead of glorying only in 
Thee ; in making our boast of Thy unmerited bless- 
ings, as if our own might had gotten them, instead of 
acknowledging Thy providential goodness in all ; in 
profaneness of speech and ungodliness of life, and in 
receiving in vain Thy grace in the Gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ; we acknowledge that as a people 
we have grievously sinned against Thee, and have 
justly deserved Thy corrective chastisement. Thou, 
Lord, our offended God, hast moved the land and 
divided it ; heal, we beseech Thee, the sores thereof, 



29 

for it sliaketh. Thou who makest men to be of one 
mind in a house, and stillest the madness of the 
people, we implore Thee, of Thine infinite mercy, to 
appease the tumults among us, to bring to an end 
the terrible strife which is now convulsing the nation, 
and to restore to our country a speedy, honorable, 
and permanent peace. May we individually and 
collectively repent us truly of our past sins, and 
steadfastly propose and earnestly endeavor to amend 
our ways and doings in all time to come. Give us 
grace, we beseech Thee, to walk henceforth obe- 
diently in Thy holy commandments, and in due sub- 
jection to the powers that be from Thee, that so, 
leading a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and 
honesty, we may be blessed with a return of our 
former national prosperity, and continually offer unto 
Thee our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the 
same, through the merits of Thy Son, Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 



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